Is A Costco Membership Really Worth It?

If you are at Costco most weekends you will notice tons of carts leaving full of foods, household products and toiletries. Often, so many of the carts are full of the products you see for free samples that day. But is everything they are buying really a good deal? If you are like me you may have noticed so much of the fresh foods are actually higher priced than the grocery store. Sure, you can find some good deals in the frozen section, and their milk is a steal. But is a Costco membership really worth it?

My family of 3 doesn't stock up much on the Costco food. Most of it would go bad before we could use it or just isn't that good of a deal. We do buy a few household products like toilet paper and paper towels, but the toiletries are usually a better deal at the drug stores. Despite the fact that we rarely buy anything at Costco I still believe the $55 is really worth it each year. I can save hundreds of dollars on just a few things a year at Costco.

I think the Costco membership is worth it alone for the eye exams and products. We stopped carrying eye insurance and just use the Costco eye center. Eye exams are $49 each. Need glasses? They have glasses starting at around $70. Before we switched to Costco we often paid $100 for an exam and $400 for glasses. That was with our eye insurance. Now we don't have to pay for eye insurance and we save money each year. For our family of three the Costco membership is worth it just to get our eye exams.

Costco also has great deals on gas. I can fill up my car for about $.10-$.20 cheaper than the average gas station around where I live. Although I wouldn't make a special trip to Costco for the gas, I do try to top off my tank when I am there. I figure I save at least around $40-$50 dollars a year on gas.

If you have a Costco membership you can get discounts on home and auto insurance. We save hundreds of dollars a year using our Costco membership for insurance discounts. The first year we switched to using the Costco recommended insurance with the discount we went from spending $1200 a year to only $600 for our homeowners insurance. Our auto insurance dropped significantly too. If you haven't priced insurance through Costco I definitely recommend it. Just the savings in insurance could be worth the membership alone.

I love the deals I can find on clothes at Costco. They have men's dress shirts starting at $17.99. The look is very similar to Brooks Brothers shirts for a much better price. Anymore it's hard to find a non-iron dress shirt for under $30. I usually pick up 2-3 each year for my husband. I can find some great end of season clearance there too. The only down side to buying clothes at Costco is they have no changing room. You pretty much have to buy it and hope it fits. Keep in mind Costco has an amazing return policy, so you can just bring it back if it doesn't fit.

So even if you aren't buying anything week to week at Costco you can still be saving $100's a year with your membership card. What about you? Do you think a Costco membership is worth it?